On
Shavuot we celebrate receiving the Torah after a long journey that elevated us
to a level of unprecedented spiritual heights. Accepting the Torah sounds like
this glorious, surreal moment of closeness to Hashem, but that’s not at all how
the Gemara (Shabbat 88a) makes it sound. The Torah says we gathered “in the
bottom of the mountain,” as opposed to saying “opposite the mountain” as is
written a few verses earlier. What’s the difference? Says the Gemara that we
were literally underneath the mountain; Hashem held it over us and said accept
the Torah or die. According to the Gemara we were forced to accept the Torah.
Firstly, how can it be that in a stage of such purity and greatness we still
needed to be forced?! Secondly, what about Na’aseh V’nishma (we will do and we
will hear)? That statement has been regarded as one of the highlights of Jewish
history. It was when we proclaimed our acceptance of God’s gift to us with so
much trust in Him that we didn’t even ask what was in it first. That’s the
version of the story I know and seemingly the version written in the Torah. What
does the Gemara mean by saying that we were forced?
When 13
people dine together the first to rise is the first to die. That’s one of the
many strange theories we hear Trelawney ramble about in the series. She’s
invited to join a meal with 12 other people in the third book but initially refuses
on the grounds that by sitting she’d be sentencing someone to a premature death
(given the fact that Dumbledore was at the table it was possibly a very
premature death as he may have been around 100 years older than the youngest
person there). What’s troubling is that with this in mind Trelawney still sits
down after minor persuasion. Anyone who thinks that what she said is crazy
wouldn’t be surprised, but it’s important to note that in hear head, she just
traded a meal for a human life. What exactly was she thinking? Let’s take a
deeper look at the life of Sybill Trelawney. There are three people who have ever
heard her make a real prediction, and everyone else, including most of her
esteemed colleagues, believe that she’s a complete fake. She has almost no
knowledge of anything she’s ever said coming true. Since she clearly didn’t
figure it out for herself, all of these theories and tricks that she knows
about she either read in a book, or, being the great-great granddaughter of a
world renowned seer, Cassandra Trelawney, she heard them by word of mouth. Her ancestor’s
insights were passed down the generations through people who may not have had
any clue what they were talking about until finally they reached our beloved
divinations teacher.
The answer to why she sat down is
pretty simple; she doesn’t actually believe most of the things that come out of
her mouth, and she certainly doesn’t understand them as her great-great
grandmother did. But I’d like to venture a guess. Cassandra Trelawney, who had
real recognized talent in the area, and who may have even figured this idea out
for herself, never would have sat down. It wouldn’t have even been a question
for her. Anyone who understood that sitting at that meal would cause the death
of whoever stands up first wouldn’t even think twice about sitting down.
Rav Eliyahu Dessler has an insight
into our initial question. How could it be that the Jews needed to be forced to
accept the Torah? He says that the idea that we were forced didn’t stem from
our lack of desire to accept it. We were on such a level, one where we were ready
to have Hashem revel himself to us, that the Torah was clear. We never had, nor
before or after, such an enlightening experience as living the miraculous existence
that we did leading up to Har Sinai. The words of God weren’t going to be these
crazy ideas, which we don’t understand, that we either read in a book or had
passed down from our great-great grandparents. The words of God were going to
be no less than the clear truth of existence in our eyes. Like Cassandra
Trelawney, who understood the cause and effect of her actions, we, with a clear
understanding of the Torah had no choice but to follow it. What does it mean
that we were forced? Anyone who understands on the deepest level, the severity
of straying from the Torah, and what it does to us and the world around us, has
no choice but to follow it. There isn’t even a second thought at that point. We
understood the truth and understood that nothing could be worth the result of
abandoning the Torah’s teachings. The same Gemara goes on to say that they Jews
accepted the torah voluntarily during the Purim story. I’m pretty sure that
many people chose to accept the Torah in the 700 years between the two events.
Before Purim we were in a world of miracles and a clear perception of God.
Purim, which is acknowledged as the Holiday of Hashem’s presence being hidden-
He’s not even mentioned in the Megilla, was the first time, that we could truly
accept the Torah by choice. Things weren’t clear anymore. The importance of
keeping the Torah was hidden, and there was no recognition that turning away
from the Torah had some severe instantaneous effect. In a world of doubt and
questions if we still choose the Torah, it was clearly by choice.
If the difference between guarding
these crazy or strange traditions instinctively or struggling and failing to do
so is an understanding of them, then we need to work our way back. The
struggles and frustrations that we have in our pursuit of truth boils down to a
lack of understanding. For a nation with nothing but understanding it was
simple. What would have happened if Trelawney believed in what she said? What could
have happened if she understood and even tried to convince others that these
strange ideas were true? Well firstly we need to set one thing straight. They
are. In the sixth book Harry sees Trelawney as she’s looking through a deck of
cards. She mutters to herself, “Knave of spades: a dark young man, possibly
troubled, one who dislikes the questioner —” Right before this happened Harry
left his friends with the question of who the prince is (The Half-blood
Prince). A knave in the royal family is a prince, which makes for an
interesting juxtaposition. And the chapter The Prince’s tale may be able to help
us with what was happening simultaneously- as we know that after hearing Trelawney
Harry continues to Dumbledore’s office, and Dumbledore tells him that he had
just spoken with Snape.
“They were back in Dumbledore’s office, the windows dark,
and Fawkes sat silent as Snape sat quite still, as Dumbledore walked around
him, talking.
“Precisely. If there comes a time when Lord Voldemort stops
sending that snake forth to do his bidding, but keeps it safe beside him under
magical protection, then, I think, it will be safe to tell Harry.”
“Tell him what?”
“We have protected him because
it has been essential to teach him, to raise him, to let him try his strength,”
said Dumbledore, his eyes still tight shut.”
“You have kept him alive so that
he can die at the right moment? I have spied for you and lied for you, put
myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily
Potter’s son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for
slaughter—”
Here we see a dark young man take the form of Snape. He’s
quite troubled with hearing that his efforts to keep Harry alive have all been
so that he’d die at the right time. And he’s growing increasingly angry with
Dumbledore who is asking of him a little too much. The knave, or prince, is
Snape.
When
thirteen people dine together the first to rise is the first to die. In the fifth
book, Harry sits down to a meal with twelve other people in Grimmuld place
(Arther, Molly, Bill, Fred, George, Ron, Ginny, Hermione, Black, Lupin, tonks,
and Mundungus). In a heated debate between Molly and Sirius, “Sirius started to
rise from his chair.” If Trelawney believed that what she said was true and
tried convince others rather than doing exactly what she just instructed
everyone against, maybe she could have saved Sirius’s life. It would have been
miles away, two years later, and she never would have known, but if she built
an understanding and lived what she believed in, she could have affected lives
in ways she couldn’t have even imagined. So what happened in the third? No one
died. You could say that Harry and Ron stood up at the same time, as they say
when Trelawney asks them, but someone had to be first. Fortunately, Pettigrew
was in Ron’s pocket; there were 14 people dining together.
Who
would realize the truth behind these crazy ideas the first time they read them?
Not many. But when we commit ourselves to learning something until we reach an
understanding, some of these crazy ideas start to make sense. We won’t always
see their direct impact, and living our lives in accordance with the tradition
passed down to us for generations and the traditions found in the Torah, we, like Trelawney, may never know the impact it would make. However, if
we worked to reach a level of understanding that we, as a nation, used to have,
we’d see the importance with such clarity. Hopefully we can use Shavuot and the
learning opportunities it presents to celebrate receiving the Torah with the
same clarity that the Jews at Sinai had.
